[Starry Night]

Aloha,

I'm going to buy an 80GB Seagate Barracuda internal HD for my G4 PowerMac. I plan to use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone my original HD and am attempting to learn all I can to make such a thing possible.

From what I've read, the Seagate will come "bare". I assume this means I must initialize or format the drive before cloning. I also assume that this must be done from Disk Utility and that I can format the Seagate while booted on the original hard drive, meaning I don't have to do the "restart hold down C" routine. Is that correct?

Also, in Disk Utility I don't see an option for either "initialize" or "format". Does the "Erase" tab lead to formatting? If not, which tab does?

Thanks,
John

[Krusty]

Yes, you can boot from the old drive and format the Seagate. Yes, the "Erase" option is what you'll use -- you will be presented with a format option in a drop down on that tab when you've selected the drive that you're going to erase -- Mac OS Extended, Mac OS Extended (Journaled), etc will be your options.

Also, once you get to the point of cloning, make sure to go into the "Preferences" section of Carbon Copy Cloner and check "Make Bootable" ON if you want the new drive to be a valid bootable drive.

[Starry Night]

Originally posted by Krusty:
Yes, you can boot from the old drive and format the Seagate. Yes, the "Erase" option is what you'll use -- you will be presented with a format option in a drop down on that tab when you've selected the drive that you're going to erase -- Mac OS Extended, Mac OS Extended (Journaled), etc will be your options.

Also, once you get to the point of cloning, make sure to go into the "Preferences" section of Carbon Copy Cloner and check "Make Bootable" ON if you want the new drive to be a valid bootable drive.

Thanks! Which format option should I pick?

[Starry Night]

Also, I'm having a hard time understanding the option of taking an internal HD, like the Seagate Barracuda (Ultra ATA), and putting it inside a firewire case to have an external HD. I like the internal Seagates because they come with a 5 year warranty, and I've read that OWC has reasonably price cases. Can any internal HD, like the Seagate Barracuda, be placed inside a firewire case, or does it take a special kind of internal HD?

Thanks.

[Luca Rescigno]

No, you can take any hard drive and put it in a Firewire case. It's super easy, you just open up the case, plug in two cables, screw the drive in securely, and put it back.

[Starry Night]

Originally posted by Luca Rescigno:
No, you can take any hard drive and put it in a Firewire case. It's super easy, you just open up the case, plug in two cables, screw the drive in securely, and put it back.

Does it stand to reason that if the internal Seagate comes with a 5 year warranty, that I can stick it in the case and still have the same warranty? Afterall, how would Seagate know how I used it?

Is it also easy to install the HD interally into a PM? What are the pros and cons of having an internal vs. external HD in terms of backup?

Also, does Carbon Copy Cloner work well w/external Firewire drives? I've read that some folks have had problems, though that might be with Panther, I'm on Jag.

Thanks.

[wataru]

Originally posted by Starry Night:
Does it stand to reason that if the internal Seagate comes with a 5 year warranty, that I can stick it in the case and still have the same warranty? Afterall, how would Seagate know how I used it?

What are the pros and cons of having an internal vs. external HD in terms of backup?

Also, does Carbon Copy Cloner work well w/external Firewire drives? I've read that some folks have had problems, though that might be with Panther, I'm on Jag.

Thanks.

Seagate doesn't care how you used the drive. Stick it wherever you want.

Pros and cons of internal vs. external: If it's internal, then you don't have to worry about whether the drive is on and connected, but on the other hand you can't move it from computer to computer. That's about it.

Firewire drives act just like any other drive, so no, CCC does not have any problem with them.

[Starry Night]

Originally posted by wataru:
Seagate doesn't care how you used the drive. Stick it wherever you want.

Pros and cons of internal vs. external: If it's internal, then you don't have to worry about whether the drive is on and connected, but on the other hand you can't move it from computer to computer. That's about it.

Firewire drives act just like any other drive, so no, CCC does not have any problem with them.

Ok, I'm starting to understand. I looked at OWC's website and the cheapest firewire enclosure costs $65 which is almost as much as the Barracuda ($78). A USB enclosure runs $32, but I don't think my 1.25ghz PM has USB 2.0, hence it would be slow. The internal option suits my budget better, and I assume will perform better than a 1.1 USB setup.

How difficult is it to install an internal HD into a G4 PowerMac? My working under the hood experience on a computer is limited to installing ram in a 12" ibook as well as this PowerMac, both were successful operations. If I could manage that, do I have a good chance at installing the internal HD?

Also, is "Serial ATA" much different than "Ultra ATA". My PowerMac manual says it can handle ATA and Ultra ATA, but says nothing about Serial ATA. I ask because there's a Serail ATA Barracuda on ebay that was pulled from a guy's new G5 PM, good price.

Thanks.

[wataru]

I can't comment on the difficulty of installing your drive in a PowerMac, as I've never done it. But it's very easy to install in a case, which I've done many times.

If you want to go with a case, I'd subscribe to email alerts for cases at dealmac.com and wait for something good to show up. Yes, USB1.1 is slow as hell. Firewire is what you want, although Firewire + USB2 is also good but more expensive. Don't bother with Firewire 2; even if your computer has it, no drive can saturate even regular Firewire so you'd see no benefit.

I don't know the details of the various ATA standards. I believe they are all compatible with each other; you may not get the most speed out of your drive, but it will work fine.

[Starry Night]

Originally posted by wataru:
I can't comment on the difficulty of installing your drive in a PowerMac, as I've never done it. But it's very easy to install in a case, which I've done many times.

If you want to go with a case, I'd subscribe to email alerts for cases at dealmac.com and wait for something good to show up. Yes, USB1.1 is slow as hell. Firewire is what you want, although Firewire + USB2 is also good but more expensive. Don't bother with Firewire 2; even if your computer has it, no drive can saturate even regular Firewire so you'd see no benefit.

I don't know the details of the various ATA standards. I believe they are all compatible with each other; you may not get the most speed out of your drive, but it will work fine.

Thanks Wataru for the dealmac suggestion. I signed up yesterday and received an offer this morning for Outpost.com. 160 GB Seagate Barracuda (retail) for a total of $59.99 (after $50 rebate) plus $10 for second day air to Hawaii. I'll hopefully get a 160 GB HD for less than the best price I could find on an 80 GB. I say hopefully because Outpost seems to be a bit spotty on service, but their deal was too much to pass up. We'll see what happens, if it falls through I'll be no worse off than I am now

[Krusty]

One slight correction. DON'T get a Serial ATA drive for your older mac. Serial ATA is a new standard supported on new PowerMacs -- they have a different connectors than ATA 33/66/100/133 drives (which can be used interchangeably) and cannot simply be "dropped in" to older hardware without an adapter of some sort. Also, they cost more .. so just stick one of the older types of connection.

from SerialATA.org
Will Serial ATA be compatible with today's PCs?
Serial ATA electronics and connectors will differ from Parallel ATA, however the technology is software compatible and OS transparent. It is anticipated that there will be adapters to facilitate forward- and backward-compatibility of hard disks on PC systems.

A few more things:
Seagates are GREAT drives. Not the fastest, but extremely quiet and (at least in my experience) very reliable.

CCC works great with FireWire drives. This is, in fact a great way to prep a new drive for internal use. When I upgraded the drive in my iMac DV to an 80gb Seagate a few years ago, I simply CCC'd my entire internal drive to my new Seagate that I put temporarily in the Ext. FW case. Once complete, I popped the new drive out of the external case and swapped it with the one in my iMac. Worked without a hitch.

Also, external case can be found rather cheap if you look hard. I got a combo Firewire/USB2 case for about $32 back when I bought my drive -- they aren't all as expensive as the one you found. Here's a sweet looking firewire case for 30 bucks.

Finally, whatever case you get ... MAKE SURE its FireWire or a FireWire/USB combo. . If you want to be able to boot from your external drive it will HAVE to be FireWire.

[Starry Night]

Aloha Krusty,

Thanks for pointing that out about SATA. I was suspicious to begin with, and given that my G4 PM manual said nothing about SATA, I went with the Ultra ATA.

Assuming Outpost comes through (they're known for over selling their stock and cancelling orders), I'm going to seriously consider getting the Fire Wire case you suggested. Are there any trade-offs/ performance issues with getting a less expensive Fire Wire case?

Also, my Mac only has Fire Wire 400, will that work with the enclosure you suggested? I can never figure out all of the IEEE stuff.

Thanks,
John

[Starry Night]

Ok, I went all out and ordered this firewire enclosure from OWC. It's quite possible one of the less expensive enclosures at newegg or dealsonic (Plumax/ADI) would've been fine, but I figured if I'm getting a high quality HD, why not get a decent quality enclosure? I almost got the Macally PHR-100AC from Amazon for $63, but I liked that the OWC had an on/off switch, and best I can tell, the Oxford 911 chip set is supposed to be good.

We'll see what happens. It's always a bother ordering from new companies because I legally have only one name, John. Outpost is giving me the third degree

Thanks again......

[wataru]

Why in the world do you only have one name? Are you a famous weirdo, like Cher or The Artist Formerly Known As The Artist Formerly Known As Prince?

[Starry Night]

Originally posted by wataru:
Why in the world do you only have one name? Are you a famous weirdo, like Cher or The Artist Formerly Known As The Artist Formerly Known As Prince?

Nah, I'm just an non-famous weirdo

It's a very long story, actually a fairly interesting story, but alas, this isn't the place for it.................